Vegan MoFo: Bean & Rice Burritos (Laziness #2)

Okay, so look. I was going to cook something tonight. Really, I was. I was going to make chickpea nugglets, which are what you get if you take the chickpea cutlet dough from Veganomicon and shape them into nuggets instead of cutlets and then roll them in bread crumbs and bake them. That plus some swiss chard plus oh I don't know what else I was thinking of. It all seems so long ago now!

I got home with this plan in mind and discovered... that I had locked myself out. I was about an hour and a half later getting home than I usually am because I dragged my aching body (not been a great week for me physically) all around town running some mostly fruitless errands before heading home. But getting home an hour and a half early meant I was still home over an hour before Josh usually gets home. So I had two options: wait in the back yard, with nothing to do except think about how hungry/thirsty/tired/in need of a bathroom I was, ooooor get back up and walk back downtown.

At the end of the day, I'll almost always choose action over inaction (because I hate boredom more than I love laziness) so I got up and walked back downtown. So when I got there I was basically like I NEED FOOD OR I AM GOING TO COMBUST and J suggested we could go pick up the boy from preschool and then go get takeout.



Which is exactly what we did. We stopped at Planet Fresh Burrito in Santa Cruz, which is a place that I kind of really love. You can get a big vegan burrito for about $5... your choice of beans and rice and tortilla. (I always get black beans, brown rice, and whole wheat tortilla, personally.) And a side of house-made fresh tortilla chips. The best part? By default, there's no cheese or sour cream or anything on the burritos, so you don't have to spend five minutes telling the guys hold this, hold that. They have a couple of tasty vegan add-ons... guacamole and smoked tofu are the two that most often end up in my burrito. Oh, and they make their own fresh salsas... like six different flavors... which are self-serve, all you can guzzle from their salsa bar. I have a serious weakness for their smoky chipotle salsa and like to just drink it out of a little cup (really) while I eat my burrito.

I've been wanting one of their burritos for MONTHS but I only ever think of them on weekdays when I'm at work and can't easily bike down and get one on my lunch break. So it was nice to enjoy that treat that I had so pined for.

The Emperor used to love these burritos when he was first getting into solid foods ("black bean" and "tortilla" were two of his earliest words) but then he went through a phase where he absolutely wouldn't touch them. He was really in to talking about the burritos ahead of time tonight, and was telling me, "I want to eat a burrito. I want a burrito on my plate. I want Grey to eat a burrito. I want to eat a burrito with black beans, brown rice, and tortilla. And salsa. On my plate." He was really articulate about it. And you know? When I actually put burrito on his plate after all this talk? He ACTUALLY ATE everything except the salsa. Black beans, brown rice, and tortilla! And some shredded lettuce. Amazing.

Here he is in the car while we waited for Josh to get the burritos from the restaurant. He was insistent that we were going to go eat in the restaurant and I was insistent that we were going home to eat. He's making a good "whatever mom" face here.